End of the world put my life in perspective
If you knew everything would end in five years, how would you react? It’s a question Jim Sturgess in his new role has had to face, he tells Eleanor Steafel
In the David Bowie track Five Years, the character in the song learns that the world has just five years before its destruction. “News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in/news guy wept and told us, earth was really dying,” goes Bowie’s mournful tune. It was recorded in 1971, at a time when the notion of the apocalypse was infiltrating every corner of popular culture, from Planet of the Apes, to Charlton Heston’s The Omega Man. Now, 46 years after it was written, that song is the inspiration for a new BBC drama that poses the question: what would you do if you knew the world was going to end in five years?
Hard Sun is the latest in a spate of apocalypse stories that have emerged in recent times. Written by Neil Cross, the Bafta and Emmynominated creator of Luther, the series – which begins tomorrow – follows detectives Charlie Hicks (Jim Sturgess) and Elaine Renko (Agyness Deyn, the former model) who, while investigating the death of a hacker in London, discover proof that the world will end in five years.
It is an idea we have been returning to since the Book of Revelation. Cross has said that he wanted to show how, faced with the world’s destruction, the human race would come together because “we only truly value things when we are in danger of losing them”.
For Jim Sturgess, it’s a theme we constantly revisit because these tales underline the indomitability of the human spirit.
“It’s the ultimate concept,” says Sturgess, as we discuss his new role over coffee in a Soho café. “[It’s about] the clarity with which you see life. It’s the most unifying, uniting thing that could happen to us as people, because we’re all in it together, no matter what your religion, no matter what your beliefs, we’re all now on an equal playing field because it’s bigger than all of that.”
History, however, also teaches us that the idea of an impending apocalypse is enough to send people raving mad. In the first episode, Sturgess’s character Hicks says: “All the madness is going to come out of the woodwork.”
To get into the mindset of those facing their end, Sturgess – best known for playing opposite Anne Hathaway in romantic drama One Day – read interviews with people suffering from terminal illness.
So, what did he learn about the human spirit? “Everybody had very different but ultimately quite similar approaches to their death,” he says. “When you don’t really have much time, everything becomes so vivid and meaningful. Some people turn to religion for their last exit. Some people turn their back on it.
“That’s what the series does, it shows people’s extreme reactions and how different they are. [Some] want to cause chaos and destruction, other people unite.”
Today, Sturgess looks worlds away from the sharp-suited detective he plays, dressed in jeans and a black baseball jacket, his hair styled so that he could easily be mistaken for a scruffy Gallagher brother.
He got his big break in the 2007 Beatles movie musical Across
The Universe, and since then he’s followed an eclectic career path, with key parts in Hollywood films like The Other Boleyn Girl, in which he played George Boleyn, leading roles in big BBC period dramas like 2016’s Close to the Enemy, and indie films like the IRA thriller Fifty Dead Men Walking.
He has always rejected big-money roles if they didn’t speak to him, and prides himself on his ability to “manoeuvre” around the industry, doing good work but getting minimal
‘We only truly value things when we are in danger of losing them’
attention personally. “I’ve been really lucky to work with some amazing people but still live a fairly normal life where it doesn’t just get ridiculous. It’s a bit of a sweet spot, because it’s quite easy to tip the balance one way or another.”
It means he has been able to do niche, interesting work, but it also means he has, at times, been overlooked in favour of a more famous face with a huge following. “I’ve been cast and then moved on for a bigger name – twice a director has cast me in a film we’re about to shoot and I’ve been replaced.”
He is a reluctant Instagrammer, and has encountered an astonishing amount of racism on his account, when he has posted pictures of his girlfriend, who happens to be Iraqi. “It’s a safe zone to be as horrible as you can be, but I don’t take offence to it,” he says.
If he had it his way, he would make great music, films and TV shows, with no thought at all as to how it might enhance his brand. “I think I realised quite quickly that [fame] wasn’t that important to me. It was all about being involved in something creative that was exciting.”
Lately, he admits, finding the energy and inspiration to throw at any creative project at all has been difficult. If he seems philosophical when talking about Hard Sun, and the way he and Deyn grappled with the concept of the world ending, it’s because he has had more cause than most to consider important things in life in the past couple of years. He won’t go into details, only to say that losing people “through death and through break-up” four years ago plunged him into a particularly dark period.
“It was a really difficult time,” he says, staring at the rain battering the windowpane. “It’s hard to work when you’re in a very emotional, raw place. A lot of people say you can use that but actually when you’re in it, you can’t. It’s paralysing. So actually acting was quite a struggle.”
Time, the support of friends and family, and falling in love again all helped him get back on track, he says. “London used to be a lot of painful memories and now it’s become invigorating again. Hard Sun came at exactly the right time where I wanted to work and get really involved in something and I didn’t want to leave. The Hard Sun concept puts things weirdly in perspective.”
In four months he’ll turn 40, almost classing him as a veteran in acting terms. He is approaching it, he says, with a sense of peace and contentment he hasn’t experienced for some time.
“My lifestyle in the last two years has really changed. You can’t smoke a packet of cigarettes all day at work. You can’t go out boozing all the time. It just hurts.
“Because I went quite low, I now have a huge appreciation for feeling good again and what it means to feel good.
“You can get quite complacent about your life, and it’s not until you suffer trauma, and people that you thought were going to be around are no longer around, that you get a really euphoric sense of life.”
Hard Sun starts on BBC One on Saturday at 9.35pm